


Marry Christmas

by takethethirdoption



Category: Arthur Christmas (2011)
Genre: Christmas Story, F/M, I just thought it'd be cute, is all, it's like Santa Clause 2 mixed with Elf, probably won't be long
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:16:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5348798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethethirdoption/pseuds/takethethirdoption
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is having a grand old time being the new Santa, bringing joy around the world. The only problem, one that hadn't occurred to him, was that to be a proper Santa Claus, one needed a Mrs. Claus. Thanks to the gentle proddings of his parents, Arthur spends his time away from the North Pole to find this woman. In order to keep the secret of the North Pole secure, Arthur can't tell whom he meets that he's really Santa until she says she'll marry him!</p><p>The entire concept is terrifying to Arthur, of course. It isn't until he meets a Christmas store employee that he works up the courage to introduce himself. Their relationship builds from there, slowly but surely. </p><p>Will this woman be the next Mrs. Claus? Will Arthur find someone to love who will love him back? They say Christmas is a time for miracles, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Family Round Table

**Author's Note:**

> I adore Arthur Christmas. So much. It just has so much heart in it. Hope I finish this by Christmas.
> 
> I realize that this is pretty much like Santa Clause 2 and Elf, but luckily I haven't seen the former (even though I know the plot by cultural osmosis) and the latter isn't what I'm going for.
> 
> Enjoy!

Every Santa Claus that has ever taken up the mantle has had a wife, a Mrs. Claus, by his side. The line of Clauses didn’t just procreate by themselves, now did they? Well, if it was Steve’s way, they most certainly would, but he is not the new Santa, is he? That would fall to dear old Arthur.

Arthur, a lanky, exuberant, Christmas-loving young man, had successfully gone through two Christmases thanks to a team of elves, his big brother Steve and a genuine love for the holiday. It was really more than just a holiday to him though; Christmas was the greatest time of the year for good will toward men and happiness to children the world over.

On December the 27th of the most recent Christmas, Arthur’s family had him ‘round the table at dinner.

“Arthur,” Margaret started, pushing her plate forward. “Your father and I have something we would like to discuss with you. About the family tradition?”  
“Yes, Mum? Dad?” Arthur replied, brushing a bit of fuzz off his Christmas sweater. It was said that he had a sweater for every day of the year. He enjoyed the cold climates of the North Pole. This way, a sweater every day wasn’t so unheard of.  
“Well, Arthur, you aren’t getting any younger. And you are unmarried,” Malcolm hummed, gesturing to Arthur’s bare fingers. “Shouldn’t you be thinking about getting a Mrs. Claus?”  
“A, erm, M-M-Mrs. Claus? Like a wife?” Arthur stuttered, going as red as his me suit. “Do I need one now?”

He looked to Steve, who merely read through the paper. Steve, noticing the eye contact, rolled his eye and folded the paper slightly down, just enough to show his disdain for having been made part of the conversation. 

“Arthur, it’s tradition. Mrs. Clause, wife, bearing more future Santas. It’s all part and parcel of the whole Santa thing. It’s the silver lining, for me, of not being Santa. None of that nonsense.” With that, he flicked the paper back up and continued to read.  
“Come on, Arthur, it’s great fun!” Grandsanta grinned, taking his after supper pills. “Not like back in the 1800s where you just absconded with the nearest wench and hoped she liked you. The good ol days.”  
“What?!” Arthur exclaimed.  
“Grandsanta!” Margaret scolded.  
“Well we did!”  
“Arthur,” Malcolm coughed, brushing his beard straight. “It’s Claus tradition. You must!”  
“If it makes you feel any better, just go through our database, pick out features you like on whomever you decide to drag up here for the rest of her life and be done with it,” Steve said behind his paper, not at all interested in his future sister-in-law. “Or do what Dad did.”  
“What, go live out in a town for a couple months to find the one?” Arthur asked, smiling in disbelief. “I think dating is a lot different since Dad met Mum.”  
“How would you know?” Grandsanta said. “You haven’t been out in the world since that mishap with Trelew.”  
“Just a… funny feeling,” Arthur shrugged, immediately going into worry mode. 

He had enough trouble being Santa, so how was he supposed to charm a woman into living with him for the rest of her life? No pressure!

“Arthur, just get started. Before you know it, you’ll be our age,” Margaret said gently. “You don’t have to find ‘the one’ by next Christmas. As preferable as it would be.”

No pressure indeed.


	2. The Search Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur is having a grand old time being the new Santa, bringing joy around the world. The only problem, one that hadn't occurred to him, was that to be a proper Santa Claus, one needed a Mrs. Claus. Thanks to the gentle proddings of his parents, Arthur spends his time away from the North Pole to find this woman. In order to keep the secret of the North Pole secure, Arthur can't tell whom he meets that he's really Santa until she says she'll marry him!
> 
> The entire concept is terrifying to Arthur, of course. It isn't until he meets a Christmas store employee that he works up the courage to introduce himself. Their relationship builds from there, slowly but surely.
> 
> Will this woman be the next Mrs. Claus? Will Arthur find someone to love who will love him back? They say Christmas is a time for miracles, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had such a hard time thinking about how to parse down Arthur's scary amount of potential suitors. I don't think algorithms like this actually exist, but we're speaking as if Santa exists. So... yeah.

“Arthur, sir, what are you doing?” Peter asked his boss (in the official sense, as the elf was still ridiculously loyal to Steve), who was flicking through a computer program. Young faces of thousands of women flooded the screen, of all shapes and sizes and colors. “Ah, finding your missus, I suppose!”  
“Yeah, Peter. Say, you wouldn’t know a way to speed this up, would you?”

Arthur’s eyes were glazing over from so many beautiful women passing him by. Each of them, indeed, was beautiful in some way. How could he even narrow it down?

“Well, no sir, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know much about that.” Peter’s gaze drifted over to Steve bending over a desk to pick up a misplaced pen. “But what I do know is that you can always describe the person you love, even if you haven’t met them.”  
“Oh?”  
“Yes. Arthur, you like women, yes?”  
“I do.”  
“Well, what do you like in a woman?”

Arthur, taking the question into consideration, stood up, allowing Peter the chance to jump in and take his seat. 

“Well… she has to have a brilliant smile, lights up the room. Positive… likes Christmas sweaters and Christmas music… okay, she must love Christmas. Everything about it, even the stuff that most people wouldn’t.” Arthur grinned and tried to picture her. “And she has to love kids. A sense of adventure, that way she won’t be scared of moving to the North Pole to live with us. Willing to have children is another must. And speaks English! Not just English, but that has to be one of the languages she mainly speaks. And probably around my age and single would be nice.”  
“Yes sir,” Peter hummed, clacking away at the keyboard. “That knocks away a fair few countries by itself. The only countries that really celebrate Christmas like that are in the America and the UK. That’s the Christmas you are most happy with, yes?”  
“How many women am I left with?” Arthur asked, drumming his fingers on his cheek.  
“Let’s see… roughly 19,000,000, using the qualifiers most likely to shave off potential candidates. Loving Christmas and wanting children, that’s not exactly easy to quantify, sir.” Peter said all of this in a peppy voice, spinning the chair to face his boss.  
“That many left?! Peter, you’re meant to help me!” 

Arthur was aghast at just how many women he had to now pick from.

“And I did! Sir, there are over three billion women alive on this planet today! You’re in the low millions now!”  
“What about women who aren’t seeing anyone? And, and who celebrate Christmas in general!”  
“Let’s see… conservative estimates then put your number around… 9,720,000.”  
“Nine million?!”  
“Sir, please let me try and help you.”  
“Can we get any lower?”  
“I’m afraid the best I can do is drop you in a populous city where the greatest density of women like-minded to you.”  
Arthur was afraid to ask, but he had no other choice. “Where are those?”   
“Oh let’s see… New York.” Arthur squealed in fear. “Los Angeles.” Another squeal. “Ontario.” A small scream. “London.” A shout. “Belfast?”  
“Sorry, Peter but… even the thought of dating just worries me so. What if no one likes me?”  
“Well, you’re not Steve… I mean! Sir, if you truly want a woman who loves Christmas, then she by default will love you. Or at least, I assume that’s how it goes. I’m only an elf.”  
“Thanks Peter… I’ll take it from here, you’ve done really great work.”  
“My pleasure, sir.” 

Peter turned to wander after Steve, who was off to do some light baking in the kitchen.

Arthur stared at the screen in front of him. “Nine million, huh?”

His eyes flittered across the keyboard and onto the screen. There were so many commands he could give. Peter seemed only interested in the generals and not the specifics. His technology, what was right in front of him, could go even deeper. 

The first command he gave was to see which area had some snowfall. That took care of most places in the south in the Americas. Arthur loved snow and everything about it, and so must this future Mrs. Claus. What next?

3,567,222.

Credit card information (how else could they analyze what parents were buying for their kids as to not double up under the tree?), radio scanning, Christmas parade attendance density. Surely he could get more specific. And not in the scary city. 

“How much… spent… on Christmas…” 

Was that fair? Maybe the future Mrs. Claus didn’t have a nice job where she could afford that. Income never should be the final judge on Christmas spirit. But listening to Christmas music? That was for any woman. 

“Let’s see… frequency listening to radio Christmas songs…”

There he could see what city’s radio station played only Christmas music and who generally tuned in the most. Arthur knew the words to every Christmas song that had ever been recorded and just about every variation that existed as well. If she couldn’t stand Christmas music, then she wouldn’t be right for the North Pole, as the Elves mostly broke out into song with “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” or “Jingle Bells”. 

1,499,361.

That wasn’t so bad. 

Arthur leaned back and hummed. What else could wear down that number? He thought of his old post in the letter department. If any of these women ever wrote Santa a letter, it would certainly help his search.  
Pressing the intercom, Arthur cleared his throat.

“Um, I.T.?”  
“Yes, Arthur?” came a small voice.  
“Oh yes, Murphy! I need your help in the main room.”  
“Right away, Arthur.”

Arthur leaned back in his chair and started to hum, “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”. He sensed that this idea of his just might be the one to solve his problem of his Mrs. Claus. Hopefully whoever it was, she would be receptive to the idea of him.


	3. Narrowed Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur is having a grand old time being the new Santa, bringing joy around the world. The only problem, one that hadn't occurred to him, was that to be a proper Santa Claus, one needed a Mrs. Claus. Thanks to the gentle proddings of his parents, Arthur spends his time away from the North Pole to find this woman. In order to keep the secret of the North Pole secure, Arthur can't tell whom he meets that he's really Santa until she says she'll marry him!
> 
> The entire concept is terrifying to Arthur, of course. It isn't until he meets a Christmas store employee that he works up the courage to introduce himself. Their relationship builds from there, slowly but surely.
> 
> Will this woman be the next Mrs. Claus? Will Arthur find someone to love who will love him back? They say Christmas is a time for miracles, after all.

Soon Murphy, an elf a bit larger than the usual lot, was at the main screen, digging up the itemized child lettering system. Thanks to Arthur’s ordering system, as haphazard as it was, in said system lie the name of every child who ever wrote Santa a letter. 

“Just try to make sure the number of 1,499,361 goes down a bit. Scan all the letters received from ten to twenty years ago. That should do it.”  
“Any more parameters? Like number of letters written?”  
“Make it more than… two? Do you think?”  
“Right away, sir… looking for Mrs. Claus, I see. You know, your father just winged it,” Murphy laughed, coughing as he got off the chair. “There it goes.”  
“Well, Dad is a great deal braver than I am… oh dear, thinking about this just gives me the willies,” Arthur muttered, rubbing his upper arms.

The system hummed away, narrowing down who wrote to Santa multiple times in their childhood. Every once in a while, Arthur heard a ping, meaning another match had been secured.  
By the time Arthur returned with a small lunch for himself, the official number was brought down to 366,288. Very manageable!

“Let’s go, say, five letters.”  
241,556.

Arthur raised a brow and laughed. “Wow, that many girls still believing and writing. Seven letters!” Surely that was pushing it and Arthur knew it before he pressed the button. That would mean those girls would have their parents helping them to write and into ten years old maybe was pushing it. He would have to be more realistic.  
30,999.

“You’re kidding!” he gasped, giving off a wheezing laugh. “This many girls still believing in Dad at that age! You just don’t see that!”

He then pulled up small profiles of each of the women. All of them had names, most had pictures, some had Facebook profiles, but all of them were there. 

“But how many of you want to date a British, white, scrawny, Christmas-loving Santa?” he asked himself. Steve would say that most of these women were exactly alike and it didn’t matter which one he picked. Arthur knew that each and every one of these women were different, even to the smallest detail imaginable. That means that there was still some narrowing he could do. 

He had very little experience with women. He had never even kissed one, save for his mother.

“How do I see if any of you want to go slow in a relationship?” he asked himself, rubbing his temples. “Slow enough to date, but fast enough to move to the North Pole forever,” he added sullenly. “Come on, Arthur, you can think this through.”

“You shouldn’t date a girl who can’t wrap a present right, sir!” Bryony said, appearing at Arthur’s side. “Some of the elves were talking about you finding your Mrs. Claus. Is it true?”  
“Oh… hi Bryony. And yes. Just trying to narrow them down. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to quantify that. Steve’s usually good at that sort of thing. He’s not too interested in helping, you see.”  
“Hrm… well, if they aren’t buying ribbons or bows, then they’re not good enough for you,” she said with some sort of finality. Was that how wrapping elves dated?  
“I’m sure that the bow issue won’t be much of one. Thanks anyway.”  
“My pleasure, Arthur. Good luck!” Bryony went off after that, leaving Arthur alone.

Almost 31,000 women to pick from, all at different areas of the UK and North America. How could he choose? They were probably all so lovely.

Well, if they were Arthur’s age, and if Steve was right about regular people, some of them probably had a dating profile of sorts. All he had to do was type in a bit about himself and narrow the field from there.  
“I am… living with my family… obsessed with the holidays… love knit sweaters… have a brother… manage many people… socially awkward… loves children… hard worker. There we go!”

Arthur smiled as he sent his information in, wondering how it would match with the remaining women. Maybe all of them would stay! That would be swell, thinking he would be so compatible with so many lovelies.  
6,088.  
Oh.

Well, less women was what he was aiming for, right?

Maybe it was the “living with my family” bit, but most of North America was off the list, save for a few areas. 

“Okay, dislikes. Eliminate if they match… Christmas, animals, tea, gift giving, children, attention to detail, family, puns, elves, traveling, cycling…”

With so few left and it not even being January, all he had to do was go through at least 500 profiles a day to see if he could eliminate any more off the bat.   
2,555.

“Do that many women not like puns?!” he asked of no one in particular. A passing elf stopped to shrug before continuing on her way. “Or maybe it was elves…”

Still, from over a million to the few thousands. This he could work with.

“Okay, one of you ladies has to be the new Mrs. Claus,” Arthur whispered, looking at the screen. “Just please like a guy like me…”

 

“How do you think our boy is doing, Margaret?” Malcolm asked, getting into bed.   
“Last I heard, he found quite a few that took his fancy,” she replied, reading her novel.  
“That’s excellent! When shall he go down?”  
“I suppose sometime after the New Year is complete. Apparently there is this small town in the Midwest of America that he’s quite excited about. They have a large tree lighting ceremony, ice carving contests coming up and an ice skating rink. Oh, and it has a large Christmas store opened year ‘round.”  
“Then there is a… a woman there he could meet?”  
“Arthur didn’t mention that. He just liked the idea of being in a town like that, so perhaps another year of not finding a Mrs. Claus is on the horizon. As for the town, I believe it was called Frankenmuth.” Margaret put her book aside. “Oh, our dear Arthur, first becoming Santa and now going out into the world, and soon looking for a wife. How wonderful for him.”  
“We can only hope it works out so marvelously for him as it did for us.” Malcolm yawned and put on a sleeping mask. “Good night, love.”  
“Good night, Malcolm.”


	4. New Home Base

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur is having a grand old time being the new Santa, bringing joy around the world. The only problem, one that hadn't occurred to him, was that to be a proper Santa Claus, one needed a Mrs. Claus. Thanks to the gentle proddings of his parents, Arthur spends his time away from the North Pole to find this woman. In order to keep the secret of the North Pole secure, Arthur can't tell whom he meets that he's really Santa until she says she'll marry him!
> 
> The entire concept is terrifying to Arthur, of course. It isn't until he meets a Christmas store employee that he works up the courage to introduce himself. Their relationship builds from there, slowly but surely.
> 
> Will this woman be the next Mrs. Claus? Will Arthur find someone to love who will love him back? They say Christmas is a time for miracles, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this pace I'm going to finish this story by Christmas 2016. I think I'll make this 12 chapters for the 12 days of Christmas just to give myself a challenge of delivering this story in that amount of time. Not like it's near my most popular - I just really adore the film.

Arthur, being a Claus with a large wealth built up under that name, meant that he could afford any sort of living arrangement in any sort of town anywhere in the world. While he was sure that Steve would pick something a bit more modern and grandiose than he would, Arthur preferred his home in that it was cozier. 

Therefore, his fully furnished apartment in Frankenmuth, Michigan was only large enough for two people. His lease was for a year, more than enough time to experience what it was like living in the human world as opposed to the elf one. He even had a job opportunity lined up to work at the nearby Christmas shop, Bronner’s, with an interview today. He wouldn’t need that job to survive, but it would help pass the hours by while he enjoyed himself. 

“Next year, definitely, I find my wife,” Arthur decided to himself. “I mean, I hope I do.”

Turning around, he gazed at the winter wonderland on the front step of his apartment complex, grinning widely. Christmas decorations were still up a day after the New Year and a fresh sheet of snow across his vision made anything seem possible.

Taking a deep breath, he whipped around and promptly collided into someone walking out of the building.

That person happened to be you.

“Oof!” you exclaimed, slipping backward.  
Arthur, whose instincts on slippery surfaces were on high alert, caught you under your arms before you fell flat on your bum. “Oh, I am so sorry, I didn’t pay attention to behind me!” he spluttered out. “I really didn’t mean t-”  
“New to the town, are you?” you managed, releasing yourself from his hold and turning around. “It’s alright, we’ve all slipped and fell before.”  
“I…”

You wanted to look everywhere outside of where this young man was looking, which was directly at you. He was… he was cute, you would say, but no knock out. Sort of like you. And English! This piqued your interest, but not enough to where you would be late for work.

“Uh… have to be off to work now, neighbor. Maybe I’ll see you later.”  
“Y-yeah.”  
Arthur watched you carefully step around him and to your car in the small lot connected to the building. “Uh… wait!” he called out. “We haven’t been introduced!”

You turned back around, hand on your car door handle, and gave him a full smile. He really was cute.

“What’s your name then?!”  
“Arthur! It’s Arthur!”

You called back your own name before waving and getting in your car to drive off to your job.

Arthur sprinted into his apartment on the third floor, slammed and locked the door, and leaned against it in a daze. He repeated your name, which rolled so melodically off his tongue, and slid down to the ground.

If this is how he acted when he was around one woman, the first human woman (that wasn’t his mother, of course) that he just met, how would he be able to talk to his future wife?

Arthur shivered and stood back up before getting into a smart ensemble that was typically worn to job interviews. Best not think about that now. After all, he had a lot to experience about life outside of the Santas. Falling for every woman that he saw just wouldn’t do.


End file.
